canals and inland waterways: France: The Briare Canal (completed 1642) rose 128 feet to a plateau with a summit level 3.75 miles long and then dropped 266 feet to the Loing at Montargis. It included 40 locks, of which a unique feature was a staircase of six locks to cope with…

Briareus, in Greek mythology, one of three 100-armed, 50-headed Hecatoncheires (from the Greek words for “hundred” and “hands”), the sons of the deities Uranus (Heaven) and Gaea (Earth). Homer (Iliad, Book I, line 396) says the gods called him Briareus; mortals called him Aegaeon (lines 403–404).

Robert Z. Leonard: Later films: The Bribe (1949) was Leonard’s first encounter with film noir, and the film received largely positive reviews, thanks in part to a strong cast that included Ava Gardner, Robert Taylor, and Vincent Price. Leonard next directed Garland in In the Good Old Summertime (1949), an…

Bribery, the act of promising, giving, receiving, or agreeing to receive money or some other item of value with the corrupt aim of influencing a public official in the discharge of his official duties. When money has been offered or promised in exchange for a corrupt act, the official involved need

Bribie Island, island off the southeastern coast of Queensland, Australia, at the northern extremity of Moreton Bay. The island is 20 miles (32 km) long and from 1 to 5 miles wide and has an area of 59 square miles (153 square km). Its surface, generally low with some higher sand ridges, is wooded

Bribrí, Indians of the tropical forests of eastern Costa Rica, closely associated with the Talamancan peoples of Panama and also with the Guaymí. Their language belongs to the Chibchan family. The Bribrí are agriculturists, growing traditional staples such as corn (maize), beans, and sweet manioc

Fanny Brice, popular American singing comedienne who was long associated with the Ziegfeld Follies. Brice appeared first at age 13 in a talent contest at Keeney’s Theatre in Brooklyn, where she sang “When You Know You’re Not Forgotten by the Girl You Can’t Forget” and won first prize. In 1910

dice: Cheating with dice: …odds and is called a shape, a brick, or a flat. For example, a cube that has been shaved down on one or more sides so that it is slightly brick-shaped will tend to settle down most often on its larger surfaces, whereas a cube with bevels, on which one…

Brick and tile, structural clay products, manufactured as standard units, used in building construction. The brick, first produced in a sun-dried form at least 6,000 years ago and the forerunner of a wide range of structural clay products used today, is a small building unit in the form of a

George Edmund Street: His publications, Brick and Marble in the Middle Ages (1855) and Some Account of Gothic Architecture in Spain (1865; reprinted 1969), illustrated with his own drawings, were widely used as sourcebooks for Gothic Revival architectural detail.

Richard Brooks: Early films: …World War II, Brooks wrote The Brick Foxhole (1945), a novel about the persecution of a homosexual. The book was the basis for Edward Dmytryk’s noir classic Crossfire (1947), though the film centres on anti-Semitism. Brooks later provided the scripts for such notable films as the Jules Dassin noir Brute…

Bond, in masonry, systematic arrangement of bricks or other building units composing a wall or structure in such a way as to ensure its stability and strength. The various types of bond may also have a secondary, decorative function. Bonding may be achieved by overlapping alternate courses (rows

collective behaviour: Rebuilding or brickbat period:
The buoyed-up state of the disaster community can last only a short time. Tasks that call for intense effort within a brief time span are completed, and the slow and discouraging work of rebuilding confronts the community. Because the old community…

Steve Martin: …a Grammy-winning collaboration with singer-songwriter Edie Brickell. The latter album inspired the musical Bright Star, which premiered in 2014 and made its Broadway debut two years later. The duo cowrote the score, and Martin penned the book for the sentimental play about two connected love stories in North Carolina during…

John W. Bricker: …to be known as the Bricker Amendment. In its original form this proposal would have eliminated much of the automatic incorporation of conventional international law into the national law of the United States, leaving it to the political discretion of Congress or the state legislatures to decide upon the internal…

John W. Bricker, conservative Republican politician who held state and national public offices for many years; he was the unsuccessful candidate for vice president of the United States in 1944. After graduation from Ohio State University in 1916 and admission to the Ohio bar in 1917, Bricker served

John W. Bricker, conservative Republican politician who held state and national public offices for many years; he was the unsuccessful candidate for vice president of the United States in 1944. After graduation from Ohio State University in 1916 and admission to the Ohio bar in 1917, Bricker served

Jack Brickhouse, American sportscaster best known for his announcing of Chicago Cubs and Chicago White Sox baseball games. Brickhouse began his career broadcasting basketball games for Bradley University in Peoria, Ill., during the 1930s. In 1940 he moved to Chicago and started his 41-year

Jack Brickhouse, American sportscaster best known for his announcing of Chicago Cubs and Chicago White Sox baseball games. Brickhouse began his career broadcasting basketball games for Bradley University in Peoria, Ill., during the 1930s. In 1940 he moved to Chicago and started his 41-year

Woody Allen: The 1970s: …best screenplay (Allen and collaborator Marshall Brickman). Allen, however, astounded Hollywood by choosing not to attend the Academy Award ceremony but instead to play clarinet at Michael’s Pub in Manhattan, as he usually did on Monday nights.

Park Ridge, city, Cook county, northeastern Illinois, U.S. A suburb of Chicago, it lies on the Des Plaines River, 17 miles (27 km) northwest of downtown. The area was first inhabited by Potawatomi Indians and used by French explorers as a portage. The site was settled in the early 1830s. In 1853

Mesopotamian art and architecture: …restriction of building material to brickwork and, second, by problems of roof construction, only partially solved by the contrivance of brick vaulting, in the 2nd millennium bce. For the Assyrians, in the north, good-quality stone was plentiful, but the cost of quarrying and transport, combined with an obstinate conservatism, caused…

Jeff Gordon: …year he won the inaugural Brickyard 400, the first major stock-car race held at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and in 1995 claimed his first season points championship. During the 1997 season Gordon became the youngest driver to win the sport’s premier event, the Daytona 500, and the first to win…

Indianapolis 500: …race is always run at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in Speedway, a suburban enclave of Indianapolis, Indiana. Drawing crowds of several hundred thousand people, the race is among the world’s best-attended single-day sporting events. It is held on the weekend of the country’s Memorial Day holiday.

Antonia Brico, Dutch-born American conductor and pianist, the first woman to gain wide recognition and acceptance as a leader of world-class symphony orchestras. Brico moved from her native Netherlands to the United States with her parents in 1908 and settled in California. She graduated from high

Guillaume Bri?onnet, influential Roman Catholic reformer, one of the most energetic personalities in the French church at the beginning of the Reformation. Bri?onnet was the son of King Charles VIII’s counsellor Guillaume Bri?onnet (1445–1514), who after his wife’s death took holy orders and became

Bricriu’s Feast, in early Irish literature, a comic, rowdy account of rivalry between Ulster warriors. One of the longest hero tales of the Ulster cycle, it dates from the 8th century and is preserved in The Book of the Dun Cow (c. 1100). Bricriu, the trickster, promises the hero’s portion of his

S.Y. Agnon: (1919; The Bridal Canopy). Its hero, Reb Yudel Hasid, is the embodiment of every wandering, drifting Jew in the ghettos of the tsarist and Austro-Hungarian empires. His second novel, Ore’a? Nata? Lalun (1938; A Guest for the Night), describes the material and moral decay of European…

Bridalveil Fall, cataract on the west slope of the Sierra Nevada in Yosemite National Park, east-central California, U.S. The waterfall, fed mainly by melting snow, has a height of 620 feet (189 metres) and forms one of the most scenic features in the park. Its name derives from the veil-like

Bride, a woman on her wedding day. The word bride appears in many combinations, some of them archaic; e.g., "bride bell" (wedding bells), "bride banquet" (wedding breakfast). The bridecake, or wedding cake, had its origin in the Roman confarreatio, a form of marriage in which the couple ate a cake

Aishwarya Bachchan Rai: In 2004 Rai starred in Bride and Prejudice, a music- and dance-filled adaptation of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice that was directed by Gurinder Chadha, director of the 2002 hit Bend It Like Beckham. As Lalita Bakshi, the Indian equivalent of the strong-willed Elizabeth Bennett, Rai brought her star power…

William Keighley: …Curtiz’s Four Wives (1939), and The Bride Came C.O.D., a screwball comedy notable for the pairing of Cagney and Bette Davis. Although Keighley’s record with comedy had been mixed, Warner Brothers entrusted him with one of their most expensive acquisitions, the Broadway hit The Man Who Came to Dinner, which…

The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky, short story by Stephen Crane, published in The Open Boat and Other Stories in London and a smaller collection, The Open Boat and Other Tales of Adventure, in New York in 1898. The story is set at the end of the 19th century in a town called Yellow Sky and concerns the

Norman Taurog: Musical comedies and Boys Town: The Bride Goes Wild (1948) was another misfire, with June Allyson as an aspiring illustrator who is hired to create the artwork for a book by a popular children’s author (Van Johnson); after meeting the hard-drinking, cynical man, however, she threatens to expose him. More…

Bride of Frankenstein, American horror film, released in 1935, that is a sequel to Frankenstein (1931), with Boris Karloff reprising his role as the misunderstood monster. In contrast to the usual reputation of movie sequels, many viewers regard the film as superior to its predecessor. Bride of

St. Brigid of Ireland, ; feast day February 1), virgin and abbess of Kildare, one of the patron saints of Ireland. Little is known of her life but from legend, myth, and folklore. According to these, she was born of a noble father and a slave mother and was sold along with her mother to a Druid,

Friedrich Schiller: Philosophical studies and classical drama: …Die Braut von Messina (1803; The Bride of Messina), written in emulation of Greek drama, with its important preface, Schiller’s last critical pronouncement); and Wilhelm Tell (1804; William Tell), which depicts the revolt of the Swiss forest cantons against Habsburg rule and the assassination of a tyrannous Austrian governor by…

The Bride of the Innisfallen, collection of short stories by Eudora Welty, published in 1955. Welty broke from her usual style for this fourth volume of stories, dedicated to British writer Elizabeth Bowen. The seven stories, focused largely on female characters, elaborate upon tenuous

Bela Lugosi: …as Glen or Glenda? (1953), Bride of the Monster (1956), and Plan 9 from Outer Space (filmed 1956, released 1959), all now unintentionally hilarious cult favourites. Lugosi was buried, as he wished, wearing the long black cape that he had worn in Dracula.

Marcel Duchamp: Farewell to art: …for an utterly awkward piece: The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even (The Large Glass). For it, he repudiated entirely what he called retinal art and adopted the geometrical methods of industrial design. It became like the blueprint of a machine, albeit a symbolic one, that embodied his ideas…

Dorothy Arzner: Films of the 1930s and ’40s: In 1937 Arzner directed The Bride Wore Red, which starred Joan Crawford as a cabaret singer who is given the opportunity to live as a socialite but ultimately gives up wealth in order to marry a humble postman. Dance, Girl, Dance (1940), which paired Lucille Ball (in perhaps her…

Goatsbeard, (Aruncus dioicus), herbaceous perennial plant of the rose family (Rosaceae), native to the north temperate zone. Goatsbeard is often listed as the only species of the genus Aruncus. It occurs most commonly in rich woods in mountainous regions and is cultivated as a border plant. The

Titanic: Final hours: …the Titanic, Jack Phillips and Harold Bride, had been receiving iceberg warnings, most of which were passed along to the bridge. The two men worked for the Marconi Company, and much of their job was relaying passengers’ messages. On the evening of April 14 the Titanic began to approach an…

Bridewealth, payment made by a groom or his kin to the kin of the bride in order to ratify a marriage. In such cultures, a marriage is not reckoned to have ended until the return of bridewealth has been acknowledged, signifying divorce. The payment of bridewealth is most often a matter of social

mystery religion: Rites and festivals: degrees of initiations: Corax (Raven), Nymphus (Bridegroom), Miles (Soldier), Leo (Lion), Perses (Persian), Heliodromus (Courier of the Sun), and Pater (Father). Those in the lowest ranks, certainly the Corax, were the servants of the community during the sacred meal of bread and water that formed part of the rite.

Aleksandr Pushkin: At Mikhaylovskoye: His ballad “Zhenikh” (1825; “The Bridegroom”), for instance, is based on motifs from Russian folklore; and its simple, swift-moving style, quite different from the brilliant extravagance of Ruslan and Ludmila or the romantic, melodious music of the “southern” poems, emphasizes its stark tragedy.

Los Angeles Dodgers, American professional baseball team based in Los Angeles that plays in the National League (NL). The team has won six World Series titles and 23 NL pennants. Founded in 1883, the Dodgers were originally based in Brooklyn, New York, and were known as the Atlantics. The team

Philippe-Sirice Bridel, man of letters, known as le doyen Bridel, who advocated an indigenous Swiss literature and tried to awaken a national consciousness in all areas of life. A French-language writer, Bridel helped bring both French- and German-speaking Swiss together in politics as well as in

I.J. Singer: …novel Di brider Ashkenazi (The Brothers Ashkenazi) was published in 1936 and was followed in 1938 by ?aver Na?man (“Comrade Na?man”), a scathing indictment of communism, and then in 1943 by Di mishpo?e ?arnovs?i (The Family Carnovsky).

Jeremy Irons: …appearing in the television series Brideshead Revisited (1981), which was based on the novel by Evelyn Waugh. Irons offered deliciously wicked turns in Dead Ringers (1988) and Reversal of Fortune (1990). In the latter film he starred as Claus von Bülow, a wealthy socialite convicted of the attempted murder of…

Brideshead Revisited, The Sacred & Profane Memories of Captain Charles Ryder, satirical novel by Evelyn Waugh, published in 1945. An acclaimed TV miniseries of the same name, starring Jeremy Irons and Anthony Andrews, was based on the novel in 1981. According to Waugh, a convert to Roman

Judd Apatow: …change for Apatow, the movie Bridesmaids (2011) and the HBO TV series Girls (2012–17), both of which he produced, focused primarily on female characters. He both produced and directed Trainwreck (2015), a comedy written by and starring stand-up comedian Amy Schumer. The film concerns an unabashedly promiscuous young woman who,…

Bridewealth, payment made by a groom or his kin to the kin of the bride in order to ratify a marriage. In such cultures, a marriage is not reckoned to have ended until the return of bridewealth has been acknowledged, signifying divorce. The payment of bridewealth is most often a matter of social

Bridge, in electrical measurement, instrument for measuring electrical quantities. The first such instrument, invented by British mathematician Samuel Christie and popularized in 1843 by Sir Charles Wheatstone, measures resistance by comparing the current flowing through one part of the bridge

Bridge, structure that spans horizontally between supports, whose function is to carry vertical loads. The prototypical bridge is quite simple—two supports holding up a beam—yet the engineering problems that must be overcome even in this simple form are inherent in every bridge: the supports must

Bridge, card game derived from whist, through the earlier variants bridge whist and auction bridge. The essential features of all bridge games, as of whist, are that four persons play, two against two as partners; a standard 52-card deck of playing cards is dealt out one at a time, clockwise around

Bridge, in stringed musical instruments, piece of elastic wood that transmits the vibrations of the string to the resonating body. Bridges are of two kinds. In the pressure bridge, the string is fastened at one end to a tuning peg or a wrest pin and at the other to a pin or a tailpiece; it passes

civil engineering: History: …France in 1716 of the Bridge and Highway Corps, out of which in 1747 grew the école Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées (“National School of Bridges and Highways”). Its teachers wrote books that became standard works on the mechanics of materials, machines, and hydraulics, and leading British engineers learned French…

Camille Corot: Early life and career: His first important work, The Bridge at Narni, was shown at the Paris Salon in 1827, when he was still in Italy. In 1833 he exhibited a large landscape of the forest of Fontainebleau, which was awarded a second-class medal: this gave Corot the right to show his pictures…

The Bridge at Remagen, American war film, released in 1969, that earned acclaim for its gripping battle sequences and fine cast. Based on actual events, the film is set in the waning days of World War II as U.S. forces race to capture a strategic bridge at Remagen, Germany. Although German Maj.

Bridge, in electrical measurement, instrument for measuring electrical quantities. The first such instrument, invented by British mathematician Samuel Christie and popularized in 1843 by Sir Charles Wheatstone, measures resistance by comparing the current flowing through one part of the bridge

crane: Bridge cranes comprise another important class of cranes in which the pulley system is suspended from a trolley that moves on tracks along one or two horizontal beams, called the bridge, that are supported at both ends. In most cases, the bridge itself can move…

Euclid’s fifth proposition in the first book of his Elements (that the base angles in an isosceles triangle are equal) may have been named the Bridge of Asses (Latin: Pons Asinorum) for medieval students who, clearly not destined to cross over into more abstract mathematics, had difficulty

Samuel R. Delany: …Flight from Nevèr?on [1985]; and The Bridge of Lost Desire [1987]) is set in a magical past at the beginning of civilization. These tales concern power and its abuse while taking up contemporary themes (including such topics as AIDS). His complex Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand (1984)…

Armand Guillaumin: , The Bridge of Louis Philippe (1875) and The Port at Charenton (1878). His passionate feeling toward nature both impressed and influenced Vincent van Gogh; they became friends during van Gogh’s residence in Paris in 1887. His execution is direct, bold, and sometimes vehement, and his…

The Bridge of San Luis Rey, Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Thornton Wilder, published in 1927. Wilder’s career was established with this book, in which he first made use of historical subject matter as a background for his interwoven themes of the search for justice, the possibility of altruism,

Steven Spielberg: 2000 and beyond: …directed the Cold War drama Bridge of Spies (2015), which was written by the Coen brothers and Matt Charman. Depicting historical events, the film featured Tom Hanks as civilian lawyer James B. Donovan, who in 1957 was called upon to defend Soviet spy Vilyam Genrikhovich Fisher, known by the code…

immortality: …Zoroaster accepted the notion of Chinvat peretu, or the Bridge of the Requiter, which was to be crossed after death and which was broad for the righteous and narrow for the wicked, who fell from it into hell. In Indian philosophy and religion, the steps upward—or downward—in the series of…

The Bridge on the River Kwai, British-American war film, released in 1957 and directed by David Lean, that was both a critical and popular success and became an enduring classic. The movie garnered seven Academy Awards, including that for best picture, as well as three Golden Globe Awards and four

Pierre Boulle: …best known for his novel Le Pont de la rivière Kwa? (1952; U.S. title, The Bridge over the River Kwai; U.K. title, The Bridge on the River Kwai), dealing with a company of British soldiers taken prisoner by the Japanese in World War II. An ambiguous moral fable, it presents…

Sam Mendes: For the Bridge Project (2009–12), a series of collaboratively produced plays that were performed in multiple international cities, he served as artistic director and staged The Cherry Orchard and four of Shakespeare’s dramas. He returned to filmmaking with Skyfall (2012), a particularly well-received installment in the long-running…

Bridgeton, city, seat (1749) of Cumberland county, southwestern New Jersey, U.S. It lies along Cohansey Creek, 38 miles (61 km) south of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The site was settled by Richard Hancock in 1686, and its first name was Cohansey Bridge, for a bridge (1718) that spanned the creek.

Frank Bridge, English composer, viola player, and conductor, one of the most accomplished musicians of his day, known especially for his chamber music and songs. Bridge studied violin at the Royal College of Music, London, but changed to viola, becoming a virtuoso player. After a period in the

Die Brücke, (German: “The Bridge”) organization of German painters and printmakers that from 1905 to 1913 played a pivotal role in the development of Expressionism. The group was founded in 1905 in Germany by four architectural students in Dresden—Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, who gave the group its name,

Millville, city, Cumberland county, southwestern New Jersey, U.S. It lies at the head of navigation on the Maurice River, 45 miles (72 km) south of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Union Lake, formed by a dam (1806), is to the northwest. The earliest settlers were woodcutters who built cabins along the

Hart Crane: Kahn, Crane completed The Bridge. Inspired in part by the Brooklyn Bridge and standing for the creative power of man uniting the present and the past, the poem has 15 parts and is unified by a structure modeled after that of the symphony.

marble: In bridgeboard, or nineholes, a board with several numbered arches is set up, and players try to shoot their marbles through the arches. A Chinese marble game consists of kicking a marble against an opponent’s to make the latter rebound in a specified direction. Local, regional,…

John Avery, one of Britain’s most renowned pirates of the late 17th century, and the model for Daniel Defoe’s hero in Life, Adventures, and Pyracies, of the Famous Captain Singleton (1720). Avery reputedly served in the Royal Navy and on merchantmen, as well as on buccaneer and slave ships, before

Milwaukee Bucks: …guard Sidney Moncrief, and guard-forward Junior Bridgeman began in 1979–80 a streak of 12 straight playoff appearances for the franchise. The team advanced to two consecutive conference finals in 1982–83 and 1983–84 but was beaten by the Philadelphia 76ers and the Celtics, respectively. Moncrief and forward Terry Cummings were the…

Bridgend, town and urban area (from 2011 built-up area), Bridgend county borough, historic county of Glamorgan (Morgannwg), southern Wales. It is situated on the River Ogmore, a short distance upstream from the Bristol Channel, and is the administrative centre of the county borough. The town has

Bridgend, county borough, historic county of Glamorgan (Morgannwg), southern Wales. Bridgend county borough extends from the mining valleys of Ogmore, Garw, and Llynfi in the north to the arable lowlands and an extensive coastline in the south. The town of Bridgend is the administrative centre of

Bridgeport, city, coextensive with the town (township) of Bridgeport, Fairfield county, southwestern Connecticut, U.S. The city, the most populous in the state, is a port on Long Island Sound at the mouth of the Pequonnock River. Settled in 1639, it was first known as Newfield and later as

University of Bridgeport, private, coeducational institution of higher learning in Bridgeport, Conn., U.S. The university is composed of the College of Graduate and Undergraduate Studies (including the schools of arts, humanities, and social sciences; business; general studies; education and human

Jim Bridger: In 1843 he established Fort Bridger, in southwestern Wyoming, as a way station for emigrants traveling westward on the Oregon Trail and as a fur-trading post. (The fort later served the U.S. Army, and it was not abandoned until 1890.) When Mormon “settlers” took over the fort, Bridger entered…

Jim Bridger, American fur trader, frontiersman, scout, the “mountain man” par excellence. In 1812, Bridger’s father, a surveyor and an innkeeper, moved his family to an Illinois farm near St. Louis, Mo. The young Bridger joined his first fur-trapping expedition in 1822 (that of William H. Ashley

Jim Bridger, American fur trader, frontiersman, scout, the “mountain man” par excellence. In 1812, Bridger’s father, a surveyor and an innkeeper, moved his family to an Illinois farm near St. Louis, Mo. The young Bridger joined his first fur-trapping expedition in 1822 (that of William H. Ashley

roads and highways: The master road builders: …engineering school in Europe, the School of Bridges and Highways, was founded in Paris in 1747. Late in the 18th century the Scottish political economist Adam Smith, in discussing conditions in England, wrote,

Mark Robson: Films of the 1950s: The Bridges at Toko-Ri (1954), from a Michener novel, was a popular Korean War tale starring William Holden as a navy bomber pilot recalled to active duty, much to the dismay of his wife (played by Grace Kelly). Robson next made A Prize of Gold…

Clint Eastwood: Films of the 1990s: The Bridges of Madison County (1995) was Eastwood’s effective mounting of the enormously popular novel by Robert James Waller. Eastwood was excellent as a photographer traveling through Iowa for a magazine piece on its historic covered bridges, and Meryl Streep played a farmer’s wife who,…

Robert James Waller: …than two weeks he penned The Bridges of Madison County. Set in the mid-1960s, it told the story of a middle-aged Italian war bride and farm wife, Francesca, whose passion is ignited by an itinerant photographer, Robert Kincaid. The pair have an intense four-day affair before she chooses duty to…

degu: Bridges’s degu (O. bridgesi) dwells in forests along the base of the Andes from extreme southern Argentina to central Chile. The Mocha Island degu (O. pacificus) is found only in forest habitat on an island off the coast of central Chile; it was not classified…

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